I told Haiti

I called the front desk at Emmaus on Monday for the staff and faculty's first day back since Haiti's President closed universities, schools, factories, businesses and borders in March.

As the phone was passed from person to person, I delighted in speaking Creole again, in hearing their voices again (most of our friends in Haiti have been VERY hard to reach due to not having electricity in their homes, and being home-bound.)  I loved catching up on babies and spouses. I loved picturing them being together.

Even the hard things they shared were good, because finally, after all these years of being a PART and now being so removed...I KNOW. At least I know that everyone is discouraged and concerned about the future. At least I know that encouragement and faithfulness is what is needed. At least I know that this year is a major leap of faith for our friends at Emmaus, too. 

I thought it would kill me to talk to everyone. 

And instead He surprised me through the rich sound of their beloved voices by the reminder that He is heavy and thick with them.

He is heavy and thick with them, and that is what they need.

I have told them, these beloved ones--Claudin and Belony and Gertha and Anne-Yolie--for many years, that He is with them and able and what is needed. They have smiled weary, discouraged smiles and reached for my hand and told me the same. 

But He really is.

He truly is. 

And He is not lacking in any way without me.

He is not lacking in any way with me.

He is not lacking in any way FOR me.

As we chatted, I was reminded, too, that I haven't left Emmaus. It felt like my first day, back, too, talking to everyone, and there is MUCH work to do...good work, precious work, kingdom work. It encouraged them to see I am still working with them. It encouraged me, too.  

I live far away from so, so many brothers and sisters. He's weirdly planted us in a strange new place, and as I go out to get the mail tonight, sent to a zip code I'm still trying to remember, Lady Jane is on her front porch in her nightgown, moments later reminding me that the work I do, the discipling life I live each day with our children is precious and powerful and vital ministry.  Reminding me that she prays every single day for my husband, for the work is heavy and prayer, it is her most important work.  

I realize in her flowery nightgown and my sweatpants that I've been in....since...???...that He's planted us still with brothers and sisters. 

I mourn living so far from our families. I mourn living so far from our Haiti-and-because-of-Haiti families.  

But man, just as there is no where we can go where God is not, there is no where we can go where He doesn't have His people....didn't Haiti teach me that?

I told Haiti--in her muddy, littered streets and open kitchen yards, crowded out schools and brightly painted voodoo temples--that only one thing was needed.

And I was never once talking about me.

May Haiti find it SO...may I keep POINTING to Him.  

May this messy, bleeding land I now try to navigate find it so, as well...and may I keep POINTING.

May I. May I keep pointing MYSELF to Him, and everyone I meet--as my sister next door did tonight--to the only cause that matters, to the One thing needed. 

Thousands of years since Martha left that hot kitchen...it's still HIM.